


Feral

by Devussie



Category: Tenkuu no Escaflowne | The Vision of Escaflowne
Genre: Movie Reference
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-02
Updated: 2016-01-02
Packaged: 2018-05-11 01:21:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5608381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Devussie/pseuds/Devussie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jajuka encounters a child in the forest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Feral

**Author's Note:**

> Since the Escaflowne movie is (sort of) a retelling of the events of the series, I've always wondered how the Celena/Dilandau situation would have been handled. Written for the 2015 Escaflowne Secret Santa for fruitso!

The child facing them was thin, emaciated even, and huge sunken eyes darted from one soldier to another. It lifted the broken plank and pointed it at them, the tip tracing zigzags in the air, and Jajuka guessed that it was too weak to hold up the makeshift weapon for long. Certainly it would pose no threat to them in their armor. Commander Folken had ordered them to exterminate all survivors of this tiny mountain village, but this child was already only hours or days away from death. 

“Leave it,” he growled to the soldiers under his command. “It will die soon anyway.” 

There were mutterings among the body of men, but only a few. These were hardened men, accustomed to slaughter, but some of them retained enough humanity to feel empathy for an orphaned, half-wild child. Not for the first time, Jajuka wondered why they didn't desert. He found it hard to believe the pay was enough of an incentive, but in this broken world, maybe the security of a place to belong was enough. As if it didn't matter that they were destroying the world, so long as they did it together. 

_Humans_ , he thought, and snorted. 

He signaled to his troops and they parted like a wave around the trembling child, who spun from side to side as they passed, still wielding its weapon. Up close, he could see that it was female underneath all the grime, and she wore only a long tattered shirt despite the chill mountain air. He briefly wondered how she’d survived even this long; surely a human this young wouldn’t be able to make a fire for herself at night. 

_No matter. Better that it dies from exposure or some wild animal than as another victim of Dune’s madness._

Jajuka didn’t look back as they faded into the forest.

— 

It was late, but Jajuka could not sleep. They had long since stopped the march to make camp for the night, and except for the men on watch, all the rest of the regiment were quiet in their tents. Instead of lying on his bedroll staring up at the canvas, he sat by the low fire and stared into the flames. A stick of wood, burned to a black sliver in the middle, collapsed into the ashes and sent sparks flying upward. 

He tried and failed not to think of the villages they’d torched, of how the thatched roofs and crossbeams burned and collapsed just the same as firewood. 

For a moment, he believed the screaming was only in his memory. 

The heavy boots thudding past him broke Jajuka out of his reverie, and he jumped to his feet and sprinted in the direction the soldier on watch had gone, but the screaming stopped with an ominous abruptness. As he continued to thunder past the rows of tents, he caught a flash of movement as something pale darted between the rows, moving in the opposite direction from himself. He changed trajectory with astonishing agility and cut through the tents just in time to see a small form disappear between the trees. 

The chase through the forest was short; his quarry didn’t have the energy to run for very long. 

The child from earlier collapsed, chest heaving, and glared at him through baleful dark eyes. She still carried the jagged stick from before, but now the end of it was stained with some fluid whose color was difficult to tell in the moonlight. He hardly needed the iron tang of its scent to guess what it was. Blood. 

As he took in the scene, the young human lifted her other hand to her mouth quickly, as though unable to resist any longer. She gnawed ferociously on a broken bit of hardtack without taking her eyes from him. 

_So. Already a thief. And a murderer._

His hand went to the short sword in his belt and he advanced, ready to end this child’s miserable existence. 

Even to his beast-senses, his only warning was the briefest of rustles in the underbrush. One by one, a pack of wild dogs melted out of the darkness. They spread out, surrounded the child, and faced him with bared fangs, ears flat against their skulls, low growls rumbling from every throat. 

“Brothers. Stand aside.” Jajuka murmured as he took another step. 

The closest dog crouched and leaped for him. 

A scrape, a brief flash of bright metal, and the dog’s body fell heavily to the ground, darkness immediately beginning to spread around it. 

The rest of the pack rushed him, heading for throat or arm or leg, and mechanically he slew them all and left their bodies steaming in the underbrush. All the while, the child remained where she was, too exhausted or too resigned to attempt escape. 

At last, only two living beings remained in the clearing. He did not relish the thought of killing this creature, but orders and honor demanded it. No doubt, having killed one of their number in order to steal food, she wouldn’t hesitate to do the same in the future, and her next victim might be someone more innocent than that soldier had been. 

_A life for a life._

He stepped closer to her, resettling his grip on his short sword, and for a moment, their eyes met. Hers, impenetrable under the tangled mass of hair that could have been gold or silver in daylight, and his, coldly feral above his permanent grimace. In each others’ gaze, they found something familiar. 

“Desist, soldier.” 

It was the voice of his commanding officer. The man had no doubt approached unheard during the scuffle with the dog pack and now stood behind Jajuka. 

Jajuka half-turned his head. “Sir?” 

“Do not kill the child.” the officer ordered. “We will take it back to the fortress when we return. Commander Folken has need of more… subjects.” 

For a moment, the beastman considered slaying the officer instead, escaping into the wilderness, and leaving the child to whatever death in the forest. Surely that would be kinder than whatever horrors awaited her in Dune’s lab. However, doing so would mean he lost his position and any chance to affect the fate of the world. He could do nothing but obey. 

His scowl grew even deeper, but he wiped the short sword on the ground and sheathed the blade. 

The child would live, but to what end? 

— 

Later, he would be unable to recall how many years it had been since that encounter in the forest before he was commanded to attend an audience with Dune. 

He knelt before the throne and as always, Dune wasted no time with greetings. 

“You’re being reassigned to an experimental new unit, one that is directly under my command. You will be responsible for the training of these soldiers, and I will not tolerate failure. They are called the Dragonslayers.” 

Dune smirked slightly at some private joke, but it did nothing to warm the chill that flooded Jajuka’s spine at the word “experimental”. Outwardly, he bowed his head in acknowledgement, then rose and turned to exit. 

There was still a bit of amusement in Dune’s voice as he added one last remark. 

“I believe you’re already familiar with one of the new soldiers…” 

Jajuka held his breath. 

“His name is Dilandau.”


End file.
